Future of Music

Voice 2 And I’m Nick Page. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1 Through history composers have created many beautiful pieces of music like this. In fact, many composers have become famous for their ability to create music. But, does music even need a composer? Or can music begin in a completely different way? Does music need a person to write it? Or can a computer make music?

Voice 2 These are some of the questions two researchers wanted to answer. These researchers are Armand Leroi and Doctor Bob MacCallum. Both teach at Imperial College London. Both are interested in how the natural world changes, or evolves.

Voice 1 When something evolves, it changes and improves itself. Often, these changes happen over a long period of time. The changes pass from one generation to the next - from parent to a child, to that child’s child, and so on.

Voice 2 But Leroi and MacCallum believe that many parts of human culture also evolve. This includes changes in language, art, and music. Leroi told the BBC:

Voice 3 “People do not often think that music evolves. But everybody knows music has a history and it has traditions. But if you think about it, it really has evolved. It continues to change.”

Voice 1 So Leroi and MacCallum built a system to test their idea. Their system is a computer called DarwinTunes. DarwinTunes is named after the famous scientist Charles Darwin. He is most famous for his theory of evolution called natural selection. A simple way to describe Darwin’s Theory of natural selection is: “the strongest survive”. Strong living things will continue to survive. But weaker living things will disappear. Using these ideas, Leroi and MacCallum built DarwinTunes.

Voice 2 In the beginning, the computer created two short loops, or pieces, of sound. The loops were eight seconds long. The sounds were completely random. That is, each note or place of the note was by chance. Doctor MacCallum described the process to the BBC.

Voice 4 “The notes are in any place, in any order. And the kind of sound - the instrument - is also completely random.”

Voice 1 Here is what these first kinds of loops sounded like:

After these loops were created, they had babies! DarwinTunes mated the two loops. The program used a complex method to combine and mix the loops. The program took some parts from each loop. Then it used these parts to create four completely new loops. Each new loop contained some parts of each original loop.

Voice 2 But there is another thing that also happens in nature – mutations. This is a random change in the genes of the child. So, the child may develop a gene that is not present in either parent. DarwinTunes also copied this process from Darwin’s Theory. Sometimes the program added a small mutation to the next generation of loops.

Voice 1 The next step was for the four new loops to mate. That process created 16 new loops. DarwinTunes continued mating loops until it had produced 100 different loops.

Voice 2 Now it was time to start natural selection. Leroi and MacCallum invited people to rate the loops. These volunteers could visit the DarwinTunes website. There, a volunteer listened to 20 loops. Each volunteer rated each loop on how much he liked it or did not like it. About 7,000 volunteers took part in rating the loops of music.